Reflection Essay

Critical reflection

Pease (2016) writes that ‘social workers who are committed to the radical and critical tradition in social work need
to reflect upon their own positioning in systems of inequality (p. 89). Read chapter 6 in Pease, B, Goldingay, S,
Hosken, N. & Nipperess, S (2016) (Eds) Doing critical social work Allen & Unwin and critically reflect on your
implicit biases and privilege and explain how these may affect your social work practice. How do you think you
can overcome them?

Pease, (2016). Interrogating privilege and complicity in the oppression of others. In Pease, B, Goldingay, S,
Hosken, N. & Nipperess, S (2016) (Eds) Doing critical social work (pp. 89 – 103). Allen & Unwin.

Reflection

These modules and journals give a brief idea about implicit biases and privilege and their effectiveness on anyone’s social work practice. It will help me become a social worker and act according to the situation. Workers not only have to focus on the acknowledgment of our formative biases and experiences but also have to focus on their position depending on the socio-cultural activity (Goldingay et al. 2016). It helps me to determine diverse approaches toward being an active social worker. The concept of empowerment is one type of attempt to break the diverse circle of social problems that are recognized as tough in times of mitigating (Sadan, E. 1997). If I have to be a social worker, I must take responsibility for valuing power rather than focusing on them as a barrier to empowerment.

Engagement in empowerment and Aop practice can help me to overcome the issues coming at the time of my social work practice. From the studies, it can be known that knowledge is power. Thus I try to accrue enhanced communication skills and knowledge, which can help me in my social work activity. Exploitative, competitive, manipulative, integrative, and nutrient power is essential for consciousness, destiny, freedom, and personal responsibility (Merwin, 2011). Studying these five types of power helps to evaluate the effectiveness of power in social work practice. Social work is recognized as a form of activity that inhabits uncertain and ambiguous positions between social and individual. Also, it creates an uncertain position between the mainstream and the marginalized (Smith, 2010). Recognition of social works from this study helps me understand the utilization of power in different social work ideas and practices in various dimensions.

Reference list

Goldingay, S., Hosken, N., Nipperess, S., and Pease, B. 2016. Doing critical social work: Transformative practices for social justice. Allen and Unwin. (Chapter 6)

Merwin, M.M., 2011. Lessons From an Existentialist: What Rollo May Taught Me About Power in the Classroom. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 51(1), pp.28-40.

Sadan, E. 1997. Empowerment and community planning: Theory and practice of people-focused social solutions. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. (Chapter 1 Theories of power).

Smith, R., 2010. Social work, risk, power. Sociological Research Online, 15(1), pp.37-46.